The US Senate, on 21 September 2022, at last ratified the Kigali Amendment to phase down HFC refrigerants. The decision has been applauded globally.
The Amendment was agreed to in Rwanda by 197 parties to the Montreal Protocol in 2016, but the US had held back on its ratification.
The Kigali Amendment commits countries to cut the production and consumption of HFCs by more than 80% over the next 30 years. It is estimated that a global implementation of the Kigali Amendment would prevent up to 80 billion tonnes CO2 equivalent of emissions by 2050.
The USA, the world’s largest economy, becomes the 138th country to ratify.
Reacting to the positive vote, Stephen Yurek, president and CEO of the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute commented: “It counts for the jobs it will create; it counts for global competitive advantage it creates; it counts with the additional exports that will result and it counts for US technology preeminence.”
The US will now join the 137 other countries that have ratified the Amendment at the next Montreal Protocol meeting in November. Appropriately, that meeting is in Montreal, the city where the Montreal Protocol began 35 years ago.
